The development of visual effects which combine light and motion for catching the attention and pleasing the public has acquired a considerable interest in our `visual` age.
In particular this is true when such effects can be combined successfully with the communication of a meaning, as in the case of symbols, brandnames, messages or images having an emotional appeal. The objective is to animate the perceived surface, otherwise being static. Motions like linear motions, rotation, harmonic oscillation as to their visual impact are subject to some fundamental limitation when applied to a vertical surface, such as e.g. a promotion panel in an exhibition or a decorated surface in public places, large portions (if not the whole) of the surface are moving in the same way in an exactly predetermined way unless complicated and expensive mechanisms are provided. If the motion is too slow the visual impact is limited, if it is too fast the clear perception of the visual content of the moving surface becomes difficult and the impact on the public can be negative.
More important, however, there is no apparent randomness. Apparent randomness combined in the right way with a predetermined motion pattern involving a multitude of visual elements is known to produce visual arrangements which possess a high emotional impact on the observer; it is not coincidental that many contemporary art works are based on apparent randomness. One of the high visual impact motion patterns is pulsation distributed over a surface, i.e. the combination of several elements, located at different positions on the visual surface, each element having a binary visual condition: on-off.
The perception of a visual surface, combining symbols, words and pulsation is a common experience for a car driver approaching a highway work zone where pulsation is provided by arrays of flashing alert lights. Due to a law of motion perception known as `constancy of size` the image perceived by the driver includes static elements (symbols, words) and, clearly distinct from them, pulsating elements which considerably enhance the visual impact of the scene without negatively affecting the understanding of the portion of the scene perceived as static. Whatever surface-pulsation effect is desired, including possibly apparent randomness, it can obviously be obtained by means of electronic and opto-electronic technology or just by light sources distributed over the visual surface and governed by a control unit.
These common techniques represent prior art in the general field of the present invention and include large electronic boards with thousands of light emitting diodes fed by optic fibers and controlled by a computer, advertising signs based on series of arrays of neon tubes etc.
These systems all have the following characteristics:
They are primarily designed to communicate information rather than also to please the viewer. The viewer is not prompted to get closer because the individual pulsating elements (a light source which goes on and off) has no attractiveness of its own by itself. The aesthetic or decorative value which is important for pleasing and attracting the viewer and for the system to be accepted in a stylish setting, is limited or non-existent.
The system itself does not increase or reinforce the impact of the image it communicates as it is perceived by the public or the viewer substantially merely as a technical device.
Visual quality is expensive; if apparent randomness is desired, appropriate computer hardware and software is needed.
As the present invention includes the use of one or more liquids, an example for them being water, decorative objects using flowing liquids such as fountains or other structures have also to be considered as background of the invention: in fact one of the primary uses for the present invention is decoration.
Fountains and other objects have been made employing different materials such as minerals, metals, glass, plastics, such as acrylics etc., and some of them include structures from which drops of liquid can be generated.
This prior art, which is generally based more on architectural and sculptural rather than physical or scientific skills, has not offered a clean and precisely controlled pulsation effect such as the one sought and achieved by the present invention. E.g. Alain Cocoub (French patent 2 617 742) teaches a decorative structure including water droplets, such water droplets being directly generated from nozzles connected with a pipe conveying the liquid under pressure. This system is designed for obtaining a rain of droplets or tiny water jets, such rain being generated at a series of fixed points (the nozzles) and such rain representing the visual attractiveness of this system.
This known system thus does not rely, as does the present invention, on the concept of producing the visual impact in the area where the drops are formed by means of the pulsation effect as taught by the present invention, wherein such pulsation effect is obtained exclusively by forming a film of liquid, by limiting the rate of liquid received by the film, and by defining the physical and surface characteristics of the material wetted by the film as a function of the physical characteristics of the liquid including surface tension.
Therefore, the main objects to be achieved by the invention can be summarized as follows:
A method and system capable of animating a visual surface requiring very little, if any, space, and requiring no expensive technical components.
A method and system which can combine, if desired, the clear perception of a visual surface having a meaning or an information content of its own to be communicated or an aesthetic merit of its own, with a pulsation effect distributed across the visual surface, such pulsation effect being perceived as if possessing randomness properties.
A method and system where the pulsation itself and the individual pulsating elements provide an aesthetic/decorative appeal by themselves, inviting the viewer to get closer for observing and looking on from close-by.
A method and system which are in tune with the present age of communication of `natural` values, as one of the considered liquids is water.